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How to deal with an INC (incomplete) request

Please refer to math faculty’s guidelines regarding INC requests for procedures and rules in general. The following are some considerations to deny an INC request, based on the experiences of the Instructional Support Group (ISG).

No relevant documentation that covers the exam date

Failed the assignment portion when the course requires passing both the assignment and weighted exam components to pass the course

Student’s current mark is failing, i.e. lower than 50%, and student will need to get a higher mark than class average (e.g. 70%) on the final exam to pass the course

Student‘s current mark is failing, i.e. lower than 50%, and has made little effort to do the required course work (e.g. did few or no assignments, missed midterm even with documentation)

Note: if a student has missed a significant amount of the term with Verification of Illness, it is recommended that they see an advisor and possibly petition to have the course removed from their records for that term — it is almost always better for the student to retake the course in its entirety.

Estimate student’s final exam mark based on their midterm performance. Their course grade based on this estimate is a clear failure (e.g. at least 10% below passing)

The mark needed by the student on the final exam is considerably higher (e.g. 20%) than the highest mark the student has ever received on any component of the course

You should also contemplate the long term effects in consideration of any INC request, especially if the student is better off, for deep-rooted understanding (which may be needed for future courses), to retake the course in its entirety. If there is a very high risk that the student will still fail the course with a deferred exam, an INC would have no benefit but set the student back another term. In this case it might be more beneficial for the student to take a failure in the first place and re-take the course, or choose a different course path.